Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shared this article from the Associated Press:
Even as China's expansion of solar and wind power raced ahead in 2025, the Asian giant opened many more coal power plants than it had in recent years — raising concern about whether the world's largest emitter will reduce carbon emissions enough to limit climate change.
More than 50 large coal units — individual boiler and turbine sets with generating capacity of 1 gigawatt or more — were commissioned in 2025, up from fewer than 20 a year over the previous decade, a research report released Tuesday said. Depending on energy use, 1 gigawatt can power from several hundred thousand to more than 2 million homes. Overall, China brought 78 gigawatts of new coal power capacity online, a sharp uptick from previous years, according to the joint report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which studies air pollution and its impacts, and Global Energy Monitor, which develops databases tracking energy trends. "The scale of the buildout is staggering," said report co-author Christine Shearer of Global Energy Monitor. "In 2025 alone, China commissioned more coal power capacity than India did over the entire past decade."
At the same time, even larger additions of wind and solar capacity nudged down the share of coal in total power generation last year. Power from coal fell about 1% as growth in cleaner energy sources covered all the increase in electricity demand last year. China added 315 gigawatts of solar capacity and 119 gigawatts of wind in 2025, according to statistics from the government's National Energy Administration...
The government position is that coal provides a stable backup to sources such as wind and solar, which are affected by weather and the time of day. The shortages in 2022 resulted partly from a drought that hit hydropower, a major energy source in western China... The risk of building so much coal-fired capacity is it could delay the transition to cleaner energy sources [said Qi Qin, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and another co-author of the report]... Political and financial pressure may keep plants operating, leaving less room for other sources of power, she said. The report urged China to accelerate retirement of aging and inefficient coal plants and commit in its next five-year plan, which will be approved in March, to ensuring that power-sector emissions do not increase between 2025 and 2030.
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